My father, a fellow liberal (I actually introduced him to Dkos today) is active on a message board for dentist. Over the years the forum has become very political and a subgroup entirely about politics has emerged, and is dominated by teabaggers. He is the lone liberal in the group and is frequently the target of their paranoid anger and rants. Recently one of the baggers challenged him that if he would answer 25 questions he would donate $50 to the charity of my Dad's choice. Never one to back down, he quickly accepted the challenge. Over the last few weeks, we have had good fun answering the questions and reading the responses from the questioner. After yesterday's question, I decided it would be great to bring this community in on the fun and get insight from its members while answering the questions.
My plan is this: For each question I will post the question and my dad and my initial response. As this community is know to do, i'm sure there will be great discussion which can then be incorporated into the final response. Once the response is good, we will send it to the bagger. Then I'll post their responses to the same diary. I've been having a lot of fun with these questions, and i'm hoping yall will too.
Without further adieu today's question (below the fold)
If Osama bin Laden had been captured alive, should he have been read Miranda rights? Why or why not?
First, a few questions of my own: What would be his legal classification? POW, Enemy Combatant, Fugitive? What is the US's obligation here?
Our response:
If Bin Laden were captured alive, he would be brought back to the US for trial and punishment. Under that scenario, I believe that yes he should be read his Miranda rights. He would receive the Miranda warning as a precursor to being tried in a Federal Court for his crimes.
The United States has always made the claim to be a nation of laws and that no one is above the law, and everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law (See the 14th amendment). Because of this, if he is captured, he would be entitled to a trial by jury. he should stand trial in the US Court for the Southern District of New York where a jury of New Yorkers would undoubtedly convict him and sentence him to death, all while maintain protections of the Constitution that makes our country great.
Obviously you will disagree with this point, so I will preemptively address some of your concerns:
Likelihood of conviction:
During the debate about the trial of KSM, many tried to make the point that the Federal Civilian Courts should not hold the trial because there may be evidence deemed inadmissible, or testimony not allowed that would allow him to escape justice. While these arguments make sense on their face, the statistics do no bare out that military tribunals (the alternative way to try him) have better conviction rates, in fact the exact opposite is true. Since 2001 until 2010 (last date i could find for statistics), the civilian courts have an 88% conviction rate for terror suspects. Military tribunals on the other hand have a conviction rate of 15%, additionally, the military courts are much slower in delivering justice having only handled 20 cases in 9 years. Additionally, if you think a jury from the southern district of New York would acquit Bin Laden then you crazy.
Ability to interrogate:
Even if he is properly Mirandized and given a lawyer, the US could continue to interrogate him as much as they pleased. I would first posit that the information obtained in the raid provides probably as much information as we could ever get out of him, but that aside, interrogation would still be possible.
Now, I know what you are thinking, "but they couldn't use 'enhanced interrogation (torture)' methods and therefore couldn't get as much information as possible".
There are several problems with this line of thinking, first and for most, Torture does not produce reliable intelligence This is a point I would be happy to delve into further, but just to keep us on point, i'll only point to this quote from the U.S. Army Field Manual regarding interrogation:
Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. However, the use of force is not to be confused with psychological ploys, verbal trickery, or other nonviolent and noncoercive ruses used by the interrogator in questioning hesitant or uncooperative sources.
The psychological techniques and principles outlined should neither be confused with, nor construed to be synonymous with, unauthorized techniques such as brainwashing, mental torture, or any other form of mental coercion to include drugs. These techniques and principles are intended to serve as guides in obtaining the willing cooperation of a source.
(Emphasis mine)
Secondly torture is illegal under both US Law and International Law as well as morally wrong. One of the reasons that the US is a signatory to items such as the Geneva Conventions is to protect our soldiers if they are captured. How can we expect fair and humane treatment of our soldiers if we do provide the same to those we capture? I will not delve into the moral issues as morality is subjective and I will never convince you to my morality.
Torture does not provide effective interrogation, and in this case would be nothing more revenge. As Francis Bacon said "In taking revenge, a man is but even with this enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior"
To put it succinctly, we are the United States of America and we are better than that.
So i open this up to the kos community for any comments, thoughts, hate, whatever. After a bit (and assuming there is any response) we will send this to the teabagger and then post any replies he may have. Thanks in advance for your comments and help.
Also another thought, there is a great quote by Dr. King "that old rule, 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind, and the time is always right to do the right thing" that seems appropriate too, Thoughts? should i lose the quotes all together?